On both my undergraduate and postgraduate degree courses, more than half of my fellow students were female. I work in an industry full of women (not necessarily in the top jobs, but that’s another debate). When applying for university it didn’t even enter my mind that I would have any trouble because I’m a woman. Jane Robinson’s book Bluestockings: The Remarkable Story of the First Women to Fight for an Education (Penguin Viking)  has brought home to me just how lucky I’ve been. I knew women had had to fight for an education, of course I did, but this excellent book focusses on the real, human stories of the first generations of female students and just what they were up against.

While the Oxbridge universities were founded in the 11th century (Oxford) and 13th century (Cambridge), women in England were only first allowed to attend lectures at ANY higher education institution in 1830, when Birkbeck College – then known as the London Mechanics’ Institute – let them in. Girton College, Cambridge was founded in 1869, although was not an official part of the university. It had five students, and would be the first women’s college in Oxbridge. The first female college in Oxford was the Society for Home Students, founded in 1878, the year before Lady Margaret Hall and Somerville. The Society for Home Students, by the way, became St Anne’s College in 1952.  In 1881, women were allowed to sit the Cambridge Tripos (but not to officially graduate). In Oxford, it was 1884 before women could sit degree exams. They could sit them, but no certificate or official recognition was given to those who passed. Indeed, if I’ve understood the chronology in the book, it was Durham University who first awarded women degrees, in 1895.  It was 1920 before women were awarded degrees by Oxford University, and 1948 when Cambridge women can finally graduate. That said, in Oxford, it was, shockingly, only in 1959 that the five women’s ’societies’ – Somerville, LMH, St Hugh’s, St Hilda’s, and St Anne’s - became full members of the university.

These dates have an impact, but not as much impact as reading about the real lives of the women who went to the universities. Take Trixie Pearson, for example. She was a very bright girl from an impoverished background, whose mother recognised her cleverness. Mrs Pearson managed to keep Trixie at school, despite the fact that it made financial sense for Trixie to leave and get work, and eventually in 1932 Trixie was encouraged to try for university – St Hilda’s College, Oxford to be precise. Everyone in the family was delighted when she was accepted. While Trixie was at college, the family became so poverty-stricken that they had to go onto poor relief, but Mrs Pearson insisted that Trixie stay at university so that she could get a good job and help the family out of the mess they were in. The college itself  ‘discreetly, with infinite sensitivity’ invented bursaries to help. Trixie later discovered that some of these ‘grants’ came out of the personal pockets of her tutors. Finally, Trixie graduated, and Mrs Pearson scrimped the money to get to Oxford for the ceremony. The Dean of St Hilda’s spotted Mrs Pearson sitting with all the other proud parents, pulled her out, and sat her in the VIP seats amongst the college academics and dignitaries. I feel misty-eyed just typing that.

Robinson has split the book into chapters that each concentrate on a particular aspect of women getting to, and staying at, university. She traces the educational opportunities open to women right from Bathsua Makin’s An Essay to Revive the Antient Education of Gentlewomen in 1673, through the 18th century Bluestockings, up to the mid-twentieth century. In another chapter she examines the vociferous opposition to women getting to university and the fears – vocalised by Henry Maudsley among others – that if women spent too much energy on education and intellectural pursuits, then they would not have enough energy to care for their troublesome reproductive systems and would, eventually, become sterile. She also describes the 1897 Cambridge riots, which happened when there was a vote on whether women should be awarded degrees or not. Cambridge alumni (all men, obviously) were shipped in from all over the place to protest against it, with the girls of Newnham College being locked in from 11am for their own safety. The protesters even strung up an effigy of a New Woman, riding a bicycle, from  the side of a tall building, and after the votes were counted and it was revealed that the women lost, the effigy was torn down by the men and ripped to pieces in celebration. Amusingly, though, one wag who thought it would be a good idea to stick his placard declaring ‘Down With Women’ or something similar in a tree in Newnham’s grounds came a cropper thanks to the gardener’s boy kicking out his ladder while he was still up the tree.

Other chapters look at the actual academic life of the girls, how they spent their spare time at university, and the opportunities they had once they left university. It really is a fascinating and awe-inspiring book that, without wishing to come over all Oprah Winfrey, made me incredibly thankful that these ordinary women from ordinary backgrounds were brave enough to overcome societal pressure to stay and home and be a good wife or daughter. If it wasn’t for these women, I would not be where I am today.

If I may just be very pernickity for a moment, while the human stories were what really made this book for me, I would also liked to have read more about the politics behind establishing higher education for women. Was it debated in parliament, or not considered important enough to warrant discussion? I would also have liked to read more about how the movement for women’s education fed into, or was fed by, the concurrent rise of the more general women’s rights or feminist movement(s). That really is me nit-picking though, because apart from those niggles, I cannot sing this book’s praises high enough, and I will certainly be keeping an eye out for more of Jane Robinson’s books.

This book makes up part of the Women Unbound reading challenge.